


never stop writing (you’re drinking bottled love now)

by Buttercup_ghost



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Headcanon, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, I’m not sure how to tag this one, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings, Jaskier | Dandelion Has a Past, Jaskier | Dandelion-centric, M/M, POV Jaskier | Dandelion, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Pre-Canon, i...guess?, kinda vent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:13:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27865909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttercup_ghost/pseuds/Buttercup_ghost
Summary: Everything can be twisted, into fools gold and synthesized diamonds, into something beautiful but empty. Even his own tale could be dressed with fancy words, similes and metaphors that only danced around the issues he faced. Tragedy, made beautiful once again; because who wants a story that you can only finduglinessin?—And what was writing if not thehighest formof pretense?He can’thelpit. Ever since he was young, his mind would see reality through fun-house mirrors, would look upon his mom shaking and spitting how she wished she never birthed him inaweinstead ofhorror.Ugliness was beautiful, if he looked at it long enough, hard enough, thought himself in circles as if loneliness could be cured if he only found a way totalkto it. Or perhaps, write it into a picture frame, a snapshot angled in a way that wasn’ttechnicallydishonest, and sung it to people who laughed and tittered and offered paper thin sympathy more lip-service than genuine, as if that could mend broken hearts back together, could save his mother slit-wrist in the bathroom and still,still,hauntingly, hauntinglybeautiful, when he found her.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	never stop writing (you’re drinking bottled love now)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this is kinda a weird piece. i’ve actually written... two other jaskier character study’s that i never posted. one is literally from january, but i just... wasn’t happy with them? so. if you guys are interested in them i might post but... ehhhh. i like this one best. i wrote it juuust before i started my new med i think? so in the thick of a depressive episode. it had a lot about what i was thinking at the time? (i mean not all of it bc my past is different than jaskiers but you know what i mean.) i actually wrote the second section first, and the first second, but i ended up swapping the placement. i’m not super happy with the second section but eeehhh. i don’t want to write more tbh. this sat in my drafts for a bit bc i actually did originally plan on going through the tv series in this from jaskiers pov but i... did that in the first unposted piece i did and honestly i was tired, and now that i’m in a different frame of mind i’m just... not really able to write it nor wanting to. so if it cuts weird, that’s probably why. i did write an ending but it still might be too abrupt? 
> 
> another thing to note is canon is probably going to render this non-canon/meaningless bc it went into jaskier backstory headcanons? i’ve also only seen the tv show to note, i haven’t read the books or played the games, though i have heard some facts about it and read jaskiers game wiki. not the book one, but the one for the games. i actually uhhh. have not finished the witcher bc after rare species i couldn’t bring myself to. i’m posting now before the new season comes out and renders this probably meaningless, though. i’ll watch the last two eps then move onto the new season if it has jaskier in it. i really need his comedic relief to get through the show, and i really want to know how they handle him and geralt. i started watching this show specifically for him bc my sib showed me clips of him, and although i also love yen, i cannot bring myself to watch without the energy jaskier brings. i also really hope we get his backstory, even if it renders this meaningless, because ever since he said something as cynical and self serving as ‘respect doesn’t make history’ i’ve wanted to know more. it’s a messed up thing to say, which makes me curious, and kinda fuels my headcanons for jaskier. again, i only really have show!jaskiers personality to work off of, sooo... this is just about him, really. i hope he also thrives in the new season. geralt was so harsh when all jaskier has done for 22 years was help and befriend him :/ jaskiers not perfect but he didn’t deserve _that_.
> 
> another note: jaskier can be translated, at least to my knowledge, as either buttercup or dandelion. i went with buttercup bc that’s my name and i like it. sharing a name made me feel closer w jaskier tbh, and i also just like buttercups a lot. they’re a neat flower. it’s a left over from my teenage undertale obsession... dandelions are nice but i’m predisposed to like buttercups more.
> 
> hopefully i didn’t miss any formatting mistakes. pasting from goggle docs is a pain on this site
> 
> title from ‘how to never stop being lonely,’ by dandelion hands

There is power in a pretty face, Jaskier knows. It is something he has come to discover, charming smile pasted into place. 

People see what they want to. No matter if it’s someone to adore or scorn, eyes will mold you to the other person's perspective. It is easier to give them what they want, whatever they want, than to shatter their illusion; or, perhaps more accurately, alter it. People never really knew each other—pretense was something that haunted us all, coming quick and easy without most even realizing. It wasn’t something avoidable; Jaskier prefered to simply use it to his advantage.

Yes: there is power in a pretty face. In a handful of lies, plastic smiles that might as well be real, as the truth goes unsaid, indistinguishable from merit; power in words, sung and spoken, in a beguiling wave of the hand and sparkle. This is what he learns, as a bard: providing people what they want is just another way to _survive._

(But it wasn’t a way to _live._ )

And there was a power in knowledge.

* * *

The world was rotten, Jaskier thinks. It’s not a new revelation.

He has known since he was seven, cupping a stinging cheek and a cracking heart in both hands, as his mother’s visceral dripped over him; tears that flowed down her face and splattered, pieces that might have once been called a soul, hate and pain and grief that dyed his own red, spilling from bitten lips with frown lines around the corners. She was beautiful, he had thought, staring enraptured as she straddled the fine lines between wishing and cursing Julian right out of existence. 

But, perhaps foolishly, he had thought humans were the cause. Had hoped, he supposed, that it was something unique in its cruelty.

When he was seventeen and wanting, wary, writing down lies he does not yet know are so, he thinks he knows better.

(But there are no gold towers. The knowledge comes later: he had, once more, underestimated his own kind.)

* * *

People were made up of stories, Jaskier believes. And what were stories for, if not to be seen and heard and _told_?

This is what he _loves_ about being a bard: seeing a story up close, then _twisting_ it into something people find palatable. 

In reality, anything can be made beautiful, for that is something to be found in anything, everything, merely a subjective perspective people pursue, as if there was any truth to be found in imaginings. People gaze upon the tragedy, and write hymns about how _breathtaking_ it is, how _beautiful,_ twirling words until their audience was dizzy and dazzled by it. Disguised the rotting with flowers, a perversion of itself, dead bodies buried beneath the soil below. Wax poetic about how _inspiring_ it all is, when looked at with rose lenses.

Afterall, people only see what they want, and who would ever want something _ugly_? No, they want sparkle, adventure, heartache and tragedy dressed up and masquerading as _romantic_. They want meaning without actually having to _have_ it; want the illusion of substance without any. Want life, _stories_ , without having to question any of the pretty, pretty lies that help them sleep at night. That is how people are, and that is how people will always be. (Jaskier is no different.)

And the truth that would shatter those delusions, those comforting false refuges—what else would they be _called_ , but ugly? All anyone ever has are those lies, uncomplicated and simple; _easy_ , a life with nothing _but_ beauty. Tragedy is only acceptable if it’s _marketable,_ if it’s framed in pretty, pretty words, caged as something _meaningful._ As if tragedy is ever anything but tragedy; as if it wasn’t senseless, meaningless violence in its very _definition_. Your pain is only worth sympathy if you make it into _art._

Because no one wants to look at something, and find nothing good within it. Nothing but hopeless, terrorizing bleakness. Nothing but blood on the battlefield of people with names forgotten, or never known, nothing but scared princesses and broken Witchers and the price of war. That would be a bummer, right? No one wants to see that.

(People only ever cared about such tragedies if it was _them_ , being fucked, outside of the vague, bland condolences they offer without really _understanding_ one bit, what they were apologizing for.)

They would much rather see a smile. Have a hopeful message, something comforting. Rather believe it’ll get better than face the fact sometimes—it just doesn’t. Sometimes, it gets worse. Sometimes it can _only_ get worse.

They don’t want to believe that some people have lives that end before any better ever comes, that the slums are dying miserable and afraid, that while they throw parties in castles of gold, throw parties with music and dancing and food, so much food, _tables_ full of it, so much they could not possibly finish it all—people are dying of starvation, the citizens just outside their gilded walls, and the people beyond it.

No, it isn’t pretty. Not for them, dresses of silk sashes and ribbons, pearls and diamonds and gems, luxuries people would die for just a _portion_ of.

It isn’t pretty.

And no one wants what doesn’t sell.

* * *

No one wanted Julian, either. Jaskier learned that. Salty-eyed and hush-stepped, Jaskier learned.

Back then, perhaps he was innocent. Wide eyed and curious, too naive and too trusting, for a short while. Believing in something like inherent goodness, unaware of how his perspective might not be the norm. Smiling and content and _unaware._ Kids get eaten alive in a life like this; Julian was just another one consumed.

_Oh, what a pity,_ people would tut, mourning a boy with one foot in the grave, looking at his hazy form with sad eyes right up until the moment he looked back. He supposed there was a morbid kind of beauty, here, too, that pulled them; a curiosity that made their eyes drift towards him, lips pulling into a frown as _poor boy_ fell from them like morning dew from grass. So routine, really, it loses all meaning; if there was ever any in the first place.

People loved to indulge others' suffering, as long as they can frame it, after all. Spin it, see what they want in another’s tragedy, like they know it, like they knew _him._ In reality, he would only be distorted. It only shattered, in those moments their eyes would meet, in those moments they’d scan his face and only see the baren blankness of a life seeped in their so-adored fantasy; of the tragedy they would wax poetry about and swoon.

And then they would _look away._

How dull, Julian had thought. How dull.

People, in truth, were so horribly, predictably _dull_.

The moment Jaskier, risen from flame and golden, smiled his pretty buttercup smile, everyone conveniently forgot all about _poor Julian_ with faces flushed and eyes sparkling. 

They conveniently forgot that buttercups were bitter, despite their smiling sunny demeanor. 

Conveniently forgot they were _poison_.

* * *

But Jaskier was as guilty as any other, he understands. A poet was the worst kind of liar of all; a poet who saw beauty in it all, the worst kind of hypocrite.

Jaskier adored the world, childish curiosity the one thing he could never kill. For all that Juilain was a dead man, a little bit of him lived and breathed in every word he wrote upon the page, every ballad he sung with a smile, in every kiss he’s ever gave. 

Everyone is a liar; the most honest people are the ones who admit that, what they are, self aware enough not to buy their own bullshit, kind enough to warn others against it. Or perhaps, kind enough to be honest about what, exactly, they are selling. 

Jaskier never quite concerned himself with being _honest._

Everything can be twisted, into fools gold and synthesized diamonds, into something beautiful but empty. Even his own tale could be dressed with fancy words, similes and metaphors that only danced around the issues he faced. Tragedy, made beautiful once again; because who wants a story that you can only find _ugliness_ in? 

—And what was writing if not the _highest form_ of pretense? 

He can’t _help_ it. Ever since he was young, his mind would see reality through fun-house mirrors, would look upon his mom shaking and spitting how she wished she never birthed him in _awe_ instead of _horror._ Ugliness was beautiful, if he looked at it long enough, hard enough, thought himself in circles as if loneliness could be cured if he only found a way to _talk_ to it. Or perhaps, write it into a picture frame, a snapshot angled in a way that wasn’t _technically_ dishonest, and sung it to people who laughed and tittered and offered paper thin sympathy more lip-service than genuine, as if that could mend broken hearts back together, could save his mother slit-wrist in the bathroom and still, _still,_ hauntingly, hauntingly _beautiful,_ when he found her. 

So beautiful, even when he sobbed for the only woman he ever truly loved. 

(Everyone always did say poets were half-mad.)

* * *

Geralt was beautiful, too, he marveled. Even if Geralt couldn’t see it, he was the most beautiful man Jaskier had ever seen. 

Jaskier did not fall in love with people. Oh, he _loved_ , sure; he loved free and unrepenting, coy smiles and loosening clothes, but he did not love _wholes._ He did not fall in love with people, only pieces; warm brown eyes, ringing laugh, crinkling laugher lines. He falls in love with moments, that build then pass until there’s nothing left to love but memories he places and frames into songs, and then he falls out of it. It’s inevitable, really; Jaisker does not love _people._ He doesn’t think he can.

“I adore you,” he’ll still lie to the next unlucky person to catch his fancy, and it won’t— _be_ a lie, in the _moment_ , as he looks upon whatever part of them he has captured and plucked and dried to press into his pages as words. But it will never ring true, and in the back of his mind he _knows_ such a thing, but his heart is too easily swept up into instances that seem to last forever but fade just as fast, gone in a blink and then more and more colorless, the longer he dwells. It will never last, no matter how his heart will rush and beat upon his ribcage in a hammering song, that this was the one, this was the one, this was the one to take all his _lonely_ and _broken_ and _fix_ it.

(No one ever fixes it.)

He hates that part of himself, in truth. Stamps upon it with a sigh; the cruel correction of the truth he wishes to ignore, that _no, it’s not. It’ll never be. There’s no ‘the one.’_

But despite his cynicalness—or perhaps this was the _cause_ of such a thing—Jaskier had always been a romantic at heart. 

(People only see what they want to see.)

There was a comfort in destiny. That, if he just let himself get washed up in the tides of another, drown in the fleeting feeling, it’ll work out eventually; that everything that has lead him here has happened for a _reason._ Even if he was a footnote in another man’s tale, forgotten in the blaze of it, that would be enough. To know his life wasn’t meaningless, it—well. That would be enough. 

(Would it? Would it _really_? People always want _more_ ; Jaskier was a soul with big ambitions and momentary satisfaction, leaving before it ever really stays in the first place. He lived off quiet snapshots in the in-between, bittersweet ache twisted within his chest. But he always, eventually, wanted more. He has never, never, ever been _satisfied_. He will always hunger, insatiable.)

There was a safety in fate; in the _idea_ of it. There was a relief, in placing your belief in the unknown, in saying such things were meant to be, when they went wrong. Yes, there was a comfort within never taking _responsibility_ enough to be at true _fault_. After all, it could never be your fault, if it was fate guiding your hand. 

It was a cold comfort, at best. It only made Jaskier’s resentment simmer. But it was a comfort all the same, if only one could let go. If only one could _let go._

(Jaskier clings, to anything and anyone he can get his hands on, because he has never had anything he could truly look at say was _his._ ) 

As he looks at Geralt, at his molten gold eyes, at his constellations of scars, his tangled white hair and toned arms, he can practically _smell_ the destiny on him—the heartache and tragedy that may await. 

The _stories_ Jaskier could learn.

(He was never quite _concerned_ about tragedy, after all. And what was a little more, in a life full of them?) 

* * *

But Jaskier does not fall in love with _people_ , only the stories they hold; only the fantasy, and the smell of tragedy on them. 

Illusions shatter. There are no happy endings. 

People will always leave, by choice of happenstance, by walking away or _death._

He thought Geralt might be safe. He couldn’t die before him; he hadn’t left. Twenty-two years, he allowed Jaskier his self-indulgence. The only threat was dying on a hunt—but Geralt has been hunting for a long time before they met; before Jaskier was born. He had begun to think, everyday that passed, Geralt would always allow him to stay, to greet him, that Geralt could be his rock, a constant, whereas Jaskier had flit about between people for years before him, leaving and left behind. 

But people have never been as good as he hopes. 

If Geralt wants that blessing, then Jaskier will give it to him. And if it’s a lie, let it shatter on him instead of Jaskier, sick and tired of the fantasy he breathes. Too much sugar, and he feels it might puke. He is done eating it up; he is done indulging on the nausea it brings. It’s not _real_ , and it will never be. 

Fiction can rot for all he cares, and so can Geralt. 

Jaskier is done grasping, when the truth is he has always been alone, in all the ways that _mattered_.

(If he starves for the more that could have been, all the better.)

* * *

Jaskier has never known anything.


End file.
